Jesticutioner

there's a lot to be said about how the average person indulges in delusions far more than anyone is really comfortable grappling with. every now and again, a poll comes out that reveals some sort of number of people who believe they have magical powers, usually pretty high, and everyone takes turns making fun of it and affirming their own Sanity

this is more observational than scientific, but it really does seem like writing off delusional thinking as the realm of the "insane" creates this valley where the "normal" person's thinking (especially a person who considers themself normal, but that's a whole other kettle of fish) must be more empirical, because, categorically, they are not insane

I betray a bit of a tendency towards criticising pop-psychiatry here, but I really don't think it's entirely fair to treat "hallucinations" and "delusions" as these incomprehensible eldritch states of the Other when the most stable person you know is a few nights of bad sleep and one day of unreturned phonecalls away from saying something that would qualify them for a pretty severe diagnosis

most people won't admit to having any kind of hallucination at all for fear of being locked up and yet the occasional weird fucking nighttime ones that you know aren't real are, to my knowledge, one of the most common and universal human experiences

there's an interesting thing I've noticed pretty often when someone first makes friends with schizophrenic people, which is that they undergo this period where they get anxious about whether or not they're a little schizophrenic (I'm guilty of doing this too) before either shutting down entirely or becoming more open to engaging with their own internal concept of sanity

it's so universal that it really brings into sharp focus just how much effort social norms encourage in rejecting everything that could make you seem even a little bit similar to groups that have been written off as morally defective, which makes them seem even more alien and incomprehensible in turn

you're only really allowed to acknowledge these experiences if you're making jokes about them, which I think is a big reason why shadow people and sleep paralysis demons are such an enduring topic of memes. you're only allowed to acknowledge you experience distressing sensory phenomena when it's part of a socially affirming in-joke

The vast majority of mental illness symptoms are completely typical functions and behaviours, but occurring frequently or severely enough to become a problem. They're not some Unique Thing Only Those Insane People Have.

yes I am always saying that.

mental illnesses are almost always "you do something that everyone does, but REALLY BAD or REALLY OFTEN"

like, ADHD: Basically every ADHD symptom is something that everyone does. fidgeting? having trouble focusing? getting distracted? hyperfocusing? time blindness?

Everyone does those from time to time and for one reason or another. We call it ADHD when you do it so much that it causes you problems, and it can't easily be fixed by things like "drink less coffee" or "get rid of distractions".

And the same goes for delusions and hallucinations. Everybody can get them, it's not a fundamentally different thing that only People With Delusion/Hallucination Disease get.

heavy is the crown

Most normal gay situationship outcomes

— Vincent Van Gogh

- Vincent van Gogh

silly underling!!!

Artificial intelligence makes accurate sheep counting.

The midjourney stuff just reminds of when we were trying to find a new platform to host the ao3 donation form, and companies kept trying to tell me about all their "ai" features that would track donor engagement, and figure out the optimal pattern to email individual donors asking for follow up donations, and all the ways they suggest we manipulate people into staying on our websites. It was a great way to filter out who either wasn't listening to us when we described our ethics and donor base, or just didn't believe us.

Now granted ao3 is a unique case based on a) the amount of page views we get in any given time period and b) the fact that most donors absolutely do Not want to be identified as such anywhere, (the default "list of recent donors" module got nuked Immediately) but it surprised me some that the concept of "donors who value their privacy and would be furious at even the whiff of AI" is unique. Some of us really are just existing in different worlds.

Op's tags

#I just started dropping '2.5 Billion page views a month'#into conversations as early as possible bc they would Not believe me otherwise#it was right up there with having to say 'csam attacks' to get them to take my compartmentalization of information concerns seriously#turns out those are the magic words#otw#op

The last part was kind of insane, honestly. When we started changing platforms for the donor database, I kept telling them that yes I was aware we already had an account for the volunteer database, and no that could not be connected to the donor database. And they said yes fine sure and then connected them anyway. And I called them back and said, excuse me, I'm confused, I can see both databases. And they said, well, yeah, but it's only you, someone has to be able to see both databases to give other users access. The other users can't see both. And I said, no, we have been asking for a completely separate database. I should not be able to see both. And they said, you are one organization, one organization can't have two databases. And I said, last year someone used our volunteer email list to commit approximately one thousand felonies. Please feel free to imagine how much worse it could have been had they had a way to use volunteers' email addresses to get their legal names. We do not want this to be something anyone can do no matter how much we trust them. Let me describe those felonies to you in more detail. And they emailed me two hours later and said, you can have two separate databases.

This post feels like watching an iceberg go by in clear water. The amount of stuff going on beneath the surface of AO3 just astonishes.

(ID in alt)

Approximately one THOUSAND felonies

“Lighten Up” by Ronald Wimberly

Beautifuly written- and drawn.

Damn. Really powerful and beautifully drawn.

Saw this on Twitter and I obligatory need to share it

So she actually said that she does not see the appeal in Senshi at all and that the panty shots weren't intended to be horny - she just has a neighbor who looks kind of like him and does laundry in his underwear. Which she finds kind of weird and offputting, and put into his character to be funny.

But that's the thing. She doesn't exaggerate or grotesqueify or alter people's bodies to fit some standard. (Except insofar as she draws different species differently, and those are exquisitely practiced to ensure they have the same diversity of appearances that humans do.) She just presents people exactly as they are, complexities and oddities and all.

It just so happens that when you present people exactly as they are, what you present will be beautiful and alluring to many. Even the things you yourself might find weird and offputting. Honestly I think it's a touching example of how you don't have to see the beauty in everyone for the beauty to be there, simple honesty is enough to let the wonder of people's humanity shine through.

#i think we should put this post next to the interview where she said she doesn't want to eat the food in the series cuz she's a picky eater#and file them both under 'you don't know an artist from their work'#and maybe you don't need to!#maybe all you need to know is that ryoko kui is Good At What She Does#idk I don't like the implication that artists (and women especially?) can only create from personal life and feelings#some people have imagination and craft#kind of a tangent but. there you go.

no but you're very correct

This is the thing with the "I won't vote for Harris" supposed leftists.

None of them will tell you how allowing Trump to be elected helps.

Because they don't have an answer.

Because they don't really care about anything other than how they personally feel.

Actual leftism involves making pragmatic moves. The public will for revolution doesn't exist, and we live in a two party system. If you want to fight that system, great. There are things like ranked choice voting and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact we need to be fighting for. But those are fights that have to happen year round, at the state level, and not just in an election year.

And in the meanwhile, you vote defensively and strategically, in an attempt to save as many people as possible.

Saying you aren't voting for Harris isn't taking a stand against genocide. It's putting your head in the sand and admitting you care more about your own comfort than making a difference in the world.

Why aren't you getting involved in your local politics? Why aren't you running leftist candidates at a local level, so you can move them up in the system and eventually move the political discussion left. You want to know why politics have moved right? It's because the right wing has been doing that for decades.

Your refusal to participate won't save a single life.

It only means you're abandoning everyone else.

This is fucking it!

If Trump gets elected, it doesn't mean that America collapses overnight! It's not fucking self sacrifice or self punishment!

He can and will make the American empire crueler overseas!

Fuck. Sorry. This should not be controversial. Voting isn't action. It's like paying your goddamn taxes. Keep fighting, but who do you want to fight? Who is the easier enemy?

Commission for gayziIla on twitter!

This is actually how a lot of these shots were made before Drones!

Grand Old Boars can of course cast spells as a 17th level sorcerer

alright I reflected on the self. I'm 100% sure the beasts are the issue here

Hell yeah bro. 🤝Time for top surgery

sorry homie. I see now you said beasts. Like, The animal . Not breasts. The word for boobs. Did not mean to threaten you.

this is so fucking funny

my gut says this was originally about guilty gear

you would be correct!

:D